DAVE'S DIARY - 12 JUNE 2017 - PREVIEW OF EPISODE 20 - SERIES 32
BOBBY BARE HEADLINES NU COUNTRY TV
Veteran singer-songwriter Bobby Bare headlines our time travel episode of Nu Country TV Saturday June 17 at 9 pm on Channel 31/Digital 44.
Bare, 82, and Englishman Ags Connolly highlight changes in the genre in the show hosted by Mid Pacific Bob Olson and repeated Sunday 1 am and Monday 8 am.
Illinois new traditionalist Mo Pitney pays homage to country pioneers in his return to the program filmed and edited by Laith Graham.
Fellow Octogenarian Willie Nelson also returns to Behind Bars with The Texas Tornados as they plough the rich roots of our music.
Sunshine Coast singer-songwriter Jen Mize, who hails from a long line of moonshiners in Georgia and the Carolinas , is joined by multi-instrumentalist Duncan Tombs in her new video.
Nu Country TV is a highlight of C 31 streaming list on Digital 44.
Just follow this link on your computer or mobile phone - http://www.c31.org.au/series/487
Viewers can access new and previous Nu Country TV shows at the same link.
A BARE AND A PLAYBOY
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Veteran outlaw singer-songwriter Bobby Bare is well qualified to comment on changes in his music of choice.
His career began with 1958 hit All American Boy under the name of Bill Parsons.
Bobby, now 82, performs his organic video for Things Change - title track of his 38th album that includes a duet with Chris Stapleton on his Danny Dill-Mel Tillis penned Grammy winning 1963 hit Detroit City .
The 10 song album, released on May 26, features Bare originals The Trouble With Angels , Where Did It Go, The End and Trophy Girl - a co-write with late Texan legend Guy Clark that became the last song Guy wrote .
Bare also includes two Mary Gauthier songs I Drink and Mercy Now and others by his producer Max T Barnes on his first solo disc since Darker Than Light in 2012.
"This is a special collection of songs to me, not just another record,” Bare revealed.
“Great songs from Mary Gauthier, a song I co-wrote with Guy Clark that turned out to be his last and a song that my buddy Hoyt Axton inspired me to write Things Change . Hoyt told me: 'A cowboy hat will blow off in a high wind, women rule the world and things change!' After Hoyt passed away I wrote the song. Things Change has wisdom in it! That's the title of the album and first single. Things do change but my love for songwriters and the fans never, ever will!"
The song video shows Bare trading tape for a digital interface in the studio, wry humor as he considers swapping late friend Shel Silverstein's guitar for a fancy modern axe at Sam Ash and shooting a video in front of a green screen as high-rises soar behind him on Music Row.
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The late Playboy cartoonist, author and poet Silverstein wrote many of Bare's hits. They include Tequila Sheila, Sylvia's Mother (also a hit for Dr Hook ), The Winner & Other Losers and The Mermaid. Bare asked Shel to write his entire 1973 album - Lullabys, Legends and Lies. It inspired Nashville 's Outlaw Movement. Bare's producer Chet Atkins included hits Marie Laveau and Grammy-nominated Daddy, What If - a duet between Bare and then-5-year-old son Bobby, Jr. |
Shel also wrote Don't Give a Dose To The One You Love Most, Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Snout Would Not Take The Garbage Out, I Got Stoned And I Missed It, Cover Of The Rolling Stone, Freakin' At The Freakers Ball, Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh and Polly In A Porny .
He published children's books including The Giving Tree and A Giraffe and a Half, Falling Up, Where The Sidewalk Ends, A Light In The Attic, Different Dances, Lafcadio - The Lion Who Shot Back, The Missing Piece and The Missing Piece Meets The Big O.
Shel, who died at 66 in 1999, also wrote the soundtrack for the Tony Richardson directed 1970 Ned Kelly movie starring Mick Jagger and featuring Kris Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings and Thom Ghent.
He also composed music for Meryl Streep 1990 movie Postcards From The Edge with his Golden Globe award winning song I'm Checking Out.
Shel wrote the screenplay for Things Change - an adaptation of one of his books - and appeared in the Coal Miner's Daughter movie in which Levon Helm played Loretta Lynn's father.
And he penned Johnny Cash hit A Boy Named Sue , Loretta Lynn's One's on the Way , Marianne Faithful's The Ballad of Lucy Jordan , Burl Ives chart topper Time , Irish Rovers novelty Unicorn and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show classic The Cover of Rolling Stone .
Kristofferson joined John Prine, Bare and Bobby Bare Jr, late Texan Ray Price and many others on 2010 disc Twistable, Turnable Man: A Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein .
Bare performed Shel songs on the Old Dogs double CD with Waylon, Jerry Reed and Mel Tillis whose daughter Pam toured here in February, 1999.
Further info – http://www.bobbybare.com/
CLICK HERE for a Shel Silverstein feature in The Diary on October 6, 2003.
AGS CONNOLLY WHEN COUNTRY WAS PROUD
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Oxfordshire outlaw Ags Connolly paid homage to heroes including Texan Willie Nelson and former convicts David Allan Coe and the late Merle Haggard and Johnny Paycheck in his video for When Country Was Proud from his debut album How About Now.
In February he released heartbreak fuelled second album Nothin' Unexpected that features Neon Jail and I Hope You Are Unhappy.
Connolly filmed the I Hope You Are Unhappy video in his home venue - Fat Lil's in Witney - and toured England in April and May with The Ponderosa Aces from California and the UK and Ireland with Nashville songwriter Pat Reedy.
His writing developed after attending a workshop with Nashville legend Darrell Scott - he played major festivals and southern-states US tour with his band.
His major mentors include David Allan Coe, Dale Watson, Loudon Wainwright III, Chris Knight and the late Guy Clark and Johnny Paycheck.
Further info - http://agsconnolly.com/
TEXAS TORNADOS HITCH RIDE FROM NEW BRAUNFELS TO SAN ANTONE
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The late Doug Sahm and his Texas Tornados plugged singing crime novelist Kinky Friedman's 2006 Texan Gubernatorial challenge in their live return to Gruene Hall - oldest dance hall in Texas. The Kinkster, now 71, failed thrice in his political challenges but his literary and music career and Gruene Hall are still in action. The Texas Tornados perform Is Anybody Going To San Antone. |
It's on several albums by Sahm, who died at 58 in 1989, and the quartet and was a hit for Mississippi born fellow latter day Texan and frequent Australian tourist Charley Pride.
The Texas Tornados quartet featured Augie Meyers and Flaco Jimenez, both now 78, and the late Sahm and Freddy Fender.
San Antone accordionist Flaco played San Remo ballroom in Carlton on one of his tours and Freddy toured here several times and appeared in the Dukes Of Hazzard TV show.
Fender made headlines on a Tamworth festival visit.
Eltham promoter Wally Bishop's limo suffered a flat battery and Texan Fender earned loud applause when he pushed it past the Travelodge swimming pool in a spirited sprint to jump start it.
Freddy, born Baldemar Garza Huerta, on June 4, 1937, in San Benito died at 69 on October 14, 2006, in Corpus Christi .
The singer, also in Los Super Seven , had major 1975 solo hits Before the Next Teardrop Falls and a remake of his 1959 tune Wasted Days and Wasted Nights .
But in May 1960 he and a band member were arrested for marijuana possession in Baton Rouge , Louisiana .
After serving nearly three years in the Angola prison farm he was released through intervention of Governor Jimmie Davis - a singing actor whose big hits included You Are My Sunshine .
In 1988 Fender played the mayor of a small New Mexico town in Robert Redford directed film The Milagro Beanfield War.
Freddy also appeared as Tony in the prison movie Short Eyes - a 1977 film adaptation directed by Robert M. Young of the Miguel Pinero play.
Fender played the role of Pancho Villa in 1979's She Came to the Valley later released as Texas in Flames .
Further info - https://www.facebook.com/texastornados/
WILLIE AND PANCHO AND LEFTY
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Octogenarian Willie Nelson performs fellow Texan Townes Van Zandt western classic Pancho & Lefty in his return to Behind Bars.
Willie, 84, previously released the song as duets with Emmylou Harris and recently deceased recording and performing partner Merle Haggard.
The song's late writer performed live at Paul Madigan's Druids Lodge on the mean streets of Brunswick in 1990.
Historic footage of Townes singing his original was in the Willie and Emmylou video we featured on August 22, 2012.
Willie and Merle originally recorded it on their chart topping 1982 duet album Pancho & Lefty they produced on Willie's famed Pedernales golf course studio.
Van Zandt, subject of 2006 documentary Be Here to Love Me , died at 52 on New Year's Day in 1997 - exactly 38 years after Hank Williams went to God at 29.
Townes upstaged fellow Texans Guy Clark and Steve Earle, Georgians Steve Young and Larry Jon Wilson, David Allan Coe and others in the 1976 documentary Heartworn Highway .
Emmylou made her fifth Australian tour in November, 2012, with long time tour manager Phil Kaufman.
Kaufman and little Aussie mate Michael Martin stole and cremated the body of Emmylou's singing partner Gram Parsons at Joshua Tree in the Mojave Desert back in September, 1973.
That was a death pact made just two months earlier at the funeral of the Byrds guitarist Clarence White and inspired the movie Grand Theft Parsons .
CLICK HERE for a feature on Willie's latest album God's Problem Child in The Diary on May 29.
MO PITNEY FILLS FOOTWEAR
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Illinois singer-songwriter Mo Pitney returns to the show with a live homage to his heroes at the Grand Ole Opry.
Mo, just 24, performs the Max D Barnes and Troy Seals penned 1985 George Jones hit Who's Gonna Fill Their Shoes.
Pitney helped fill those shoes on his debut disc Behind This Guitar.
Mo was accompanied by singing spouse Emily of The Bankesters bluegrass fame, his band and their dog in his previous video for Everywhere.
Mo and Emily were engaged in September of 2015 and wed in March, 2106, in Emily's hometown of Carbondale , Illinois .
CLICK HERE for a Mo CD feature in The Diary on November 21, 2016.
JEN MIZE HAS A DUET WITH DUNCAN
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Jen Mize hails from a long line of moonshiners in the Carolinas and the Georgia mountains but is now living within the law on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland with her husband. She met him in 2004 while singing on a cruise ship in New Zealand and moved here in 2006. This week Jen's duet partner is multi-instrumentalist Duncan Toombs in her video for Forget Her from her Shane Nicholson produced second album Warnings & Wisdom . Jen was raised on a ranch on the outskirts of Las Vegas where both parents worked at the Sahara Casino. “I moved to Australia to find myself - that age-old tale,” revealed Mize. |
“And, for the first time, who I am as a person started to dictate who I am as an artist.”
Jen wrote 10 originals for debut album Fear, Pride & A Few Stubborn Angels - her social comment tune Deepwater featured on Nu Country on December 3.
Mize's colourful journey included singing in casinos and hypnotist's assistant at MGM, New York , Venetian, Luxor , and Mandalay Bay and enrolling in Las Vegas Academy - a performing arts high school.
While there, her choir sang at the White House and she performed as a soloist in a Christmas program for Hillary Clinton.
Later that year, Mize received a scholarship to Boston Conservatory's Musical Theatre.
“I was truly able to see the world. I visited and performed in more than fifty countries on every continent but Antarctica ,” Jen revealed.
“I quad biked across ninety-foot sand dunes in Namibia, rode horses in Iceland, held a sloth in the Amazon, and even drove a dog sled team on a glacier in Alaska.”
CLICK HERE for a Jen Mize CD review in the Diary on April 24, 2017.
HOW TO KEEP NU COUNTRY ON AIR
We need your support as we celebrate Nu Country TV's 32 nd series with Australian record companies and artists teaming to ensure our survival.
We have Kasey Chambers 11th CD Dragonfly and Blake Shelton's 12th CD If I'm Honest from Karen Black and Tony Midolo at Warner Music.
We also have other CDS by major artists you can win by becoming a Nu Country TV member or renewing membership.
They include singing actor Tim McGraw, Ashley Monroe, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood, Gary Allan, Dierks Bentley, Eric Church and more.
CLICK HERE for our Membership Page for full details.